BRYAN BOWERS' ODES TO JOY AND HUMOR (CONCERT REVIEW)

Bryan Bowers jokes about the left-handed compliments he gets. Such as becoming the first living member of the Autoharp Hall of Fame. And being invited to record with Jerry Garcia but posthumously -- on tapes the Grateful Dead leader made before he died.

It's evident from the tunes Bowers chooses that he enjoys life's silliness, from the quirky humor of a song about "a Southern Baptist gone Buddhist" to another about a dog "who helped me get rid of a lot of stuff I used to have."

But as he demonstrated to a receptive audience of 110 at Forrest Rose Theatre Tuesday night, absolutely nothing is funny about Bowers' mastery of his instrument.

His unique five-finger picking style turned the autoharp into a chiming piano on some tunes and allowed him to solo with the single note rapidity of a demon fiddler on others. It's only an autoharp, but in Bowers' hands there's a lot of music in that box.

Surrounded by numerous autoharps of various tunings and an ancient instrument called a mandocello, the onetime Seattle street musician played everything from an unusual love song about a couple who originally were the opposite sex to "Ode to Joy."

Though his voice was ravaged by an allergy to cats, Bowers gamely attempted to sing his normal set, albeit in lower keys. Sometimes he could and sometimes he couldn't.

He played railroad songs, Civil War songs, Irish songs, Carter Family songs, Dillards songs, a Shaker hymn, a call-and-answer tune and, toward the end of his 2 1/2-hour show, a seemingly very personal song he wrote called "Friend for Life."

"When you learn a song you've got a friend for life," he sang, "a friend you can call on in the middle of the night."

Along with his musicianship and offbeat sense of humor -- he also sang a song titled "Life is Hard but Life is Hardest When You're Dumb" -- part of Bowers' appeal is his genuineness.

Here's a professional musician willing to stop in the middle of a song and sing the melody while recovering a wayward finger pick or strap.

He also has a fine eye for the telling phrase, as revealed in his song "The Old Lovers": "His arms never pushed nor pulled her, and her eyes never left his face."

For an encore, Bowers stepped out from behind the microphone. The sound of his instrument still rang through the theater.

"There was music before there were wires," he said.